Platforms rebuilt at Charing Cross station – but will new trains make full use?

A major project that has seen closure of the rail line between London Bridge and Charing Cross station is set to soon complete with the resumption of services from Monday.

As part of the work, platforms at Charing Cross have been rebuilt. As stated when covering Waterloo East station improvements last week, Network Rail have done a wonderful job of keeping the public informed of progress with daily updates including many photographs.

They’ve issued photos of the rebuild at Charing Cross, noting that the original platform extensions needed replacing. Those platform extensions were put in as part of proposed 12-car Networker services that were due to run on Metro services from the 1990s – or suburban routes as called back then.

Of course barely any 12-car Metro services have ever run in the 30 years since along the Dartford lines. The train order was altered to order shorter 2-car Class 466 trains which could be coupled to two, 4-car Class 465 units making 10 the maximum length seen 99.9 per cent of the time since.

A lack of modern Selective Door Operation also later hampered maximising the infrastructure when Network Rail undertook works in the 2010s.

Future order

With Southeastern looking for trains to replace the 30+ year old Networkers, just how long trains will be remains to be seen and will be a key issue.

Most routes can take 12-car trains so ordering 4-car trains would make sense, with three units maximising services to available platform length. Modern trains with Selective Door Operation should overcome issues at places like Woolwich Dockyard and Charing Cross.

Other routes such as those to Victoria are 8-car, so again an order for 4-car trains is logical.

However what we’ve seen since the Networkers are two fleets of 5-car trains in Class 376s more than 20 years ago and more recently Class 707 City Beams moving over from South Western.

They cannot maximise potential train lengths on any route where they operate. Both classes only run as 10-car maximum on lines that can take 12-car, and on Victoria services can only be 5-car where 8-car is the limit.

If Southeastern are allowed to order new stock (via a private leasing company in all likelihood which is another issue to watch. Labour’s nationalisation doesn’t appear to be changing the privatisation of trains) will they go for trains that are 4-car in length that can maximise infrastructure, or 5-car which will not.

That’s a decision that’ll have 40-year repercussions.

Depot space

While 4-car trains seem to make more sense a couple of issues make 5-car possibly more likely. Firstly, depot space. And Southeastern lack it. Ordering enough stock to allow more 12-car running would need expanded depots. Slade Green depot is beside the Green Belt.

Maybe if any depot expansion is classified as an important infrastructure upgrade it could gain approval to expand.

Further west and Plumstead sidings has long had space beside existing tracks that would take around 3-4 tracks long enough to berth 12-car trains, but is it feasible? It’s Network Rail land so cost shouldn’t be an issue.

It is designated for goods usage and was formerly used as a coal depot (see a 1970 image here) but hasn’t seen freight use for decades. However a small section has seen approval in recent years for a concrete batching plant.

Still, that does appear to still leave enough vacant space for further passenger train sidings.

All of this costs money of course, and don’t bank on government funding it for all the PR about Great British Railways.

The Treasury have recently been demanding cuts from rail, hence we see Thameslink services which run through SE Metro areas currently halved.

Passenger numbers

Second, there’s the issue of capacity. Any new train is almost certain to have fewer seats than the Networkers and more standing space as both the Class 376 and Class 707’s do, thus each carriage can take more people than existing Class 455 and 466s, so the Department for Transport is likely to state that’s permissible

Who needs 12-cars when 10-car services will provide the same capacity as what a 12-car Networker service would have they’ll argue.

The issue there as stated is that doesn’t maximise infrastructure that exists and would mean 40 years of it. It’s only ten years since Network Rail spent large sums extending/rebuilding many Metro station platforms for 12-car services and upgraded power supplies.

Since then they’ve rarely ever been seen.

So then, those newly rebuilt platforms now underway at Charing Cross. The big question is will any new trains that arrive in years to come be long enough to ever use their full length?